Amount of (skin-to-skin contant) SSC in infants’ first 24 hours correlated with amount of SSC through the first month.

Amount of SSC in infants’ first 24 hours independently accounted for maternal sensitivity on both measures, indicating that early mother-infant SSC predicted subsequent maternal sensitivity.

Limitations

Small sample size: The number of dyads followed was small, and the age range of the infants at the time of the follow-up visit was large. The significant results obtained with the small sample suggest that the findings are robust; yet, whether early mother-infant SSC would be associated with later maternal sensitivity in a larger sample or with a more restricted age range of infants remains to be tested.

Maternal report: With the exception of the amount of SSC documented in hospital records during the infants’ first few days of life, the amount of SSC the mothers provided was collected from mothers’ reports at the time of the follow-up visits; thus, these amounts were subject to subjective recall. However, mothers’ reports of the SSC provided during the infants’ first few days corroborated with the amount reported in hospital records, suggesting that the mothers’ memories were accurate.

Low generalizability: The dyads were from a high-risk population, which limits how the results can be generalized to other populations.